Low

by Anna Quon

  At the hotel, Jazz told Mr. Song, “We’ll be done at 9:30” The ticket actually said 9 p.m. but Jazz didn’t want to risk him arriving early. She opened Adriana’s car door and pulled her by the hand. “Upsy daisy, butterfly,” Jazz said.

  Adriana hadn’t been outside the house in days and felt entirely miserable to be arriving at the hotel in what Jazz called her “Depression Era clothes.” In the haze of talk about the spiritualist, she had not registered that everything would take place at the hotel. Somehow she had imagined it being at the Forum, where there was lots of room in the cavernous rink. A thrumming anxiety overcame her and she panicked, eyes wide.

  Jazz took her by the elbow. “It’s okay, honeycomb. Come with me.” Adriana clung to Jazz’s arm as they passed the doorman, who opened the door for them but, it seemed to her, gave them a wide berth. Adriana felt the sting of contagion, as though her depression were spreading, like a cold does, from her mouth and nose.

  Jazz was chatting away to Adriana, to distract her from the glances of hotel staff and guests. They got on the elevator to the second floor, and when the door opened, they were facing a woman in a pink skirt and blazer standing beside the doorway of a darkened room. She smiled as Jazz handed her their tickets, and ushered them into the darkened conference room, whose only illumination was thanks to a spotlight on the podium in front of a bank of chairs.

  Adriana wanted to sit near the back of the room, but had no energy to put up a fight. Jazz steered her toward the front where a few people were already sitting. Wide-eyed and excited, Jazz hung on to Adriana’s arm as she shrunk into her seat. “We’re going to talk to the dead!” Jazz thrilled. Adriana felt the blood rush to her face. Jazz whispered loudly, “I’ve been waiting forever to talk to the dead!”

  Adriana turned her head away. So this is what a spiritualist was, someone who talks to dead people? Adriana thought of her conversations with her mother. The last thing she wanted was to talk to her in front of all these people. She turned to Jazz. “I’m leaving,” Adriana said. Jazz looked up at her in disbelief. “Let me get by,” Adriana pleaded weakly.

  Jazz held her hand. “Adriana, wait. Do you know why I brought you here?” Adriana couldn’t guess, except that perhaps Jazz thought it would help her. “Number one, because it will be a fun time and Lord knows, you could use a little fun. But number two is because I want to talk to my father.” Jazz gulped. Adriana stood beside Jazz, her hands open to the empty air. She felt ashamed. “It’s not all about you, you know?” echoed in her head. She’d heard those words many times from Jazz.

  Adriana sat down. Jazz was still clutching her arm, her face full of anguish. Adriana figured she was thinking about her Dad, who had gone missing when she was only a toddler. At first, it was presumed he had drowned in a New Brunswick lake where he had gone fishing with a friend. But then he’d been found hanging in a fishing shed from his own belt.

  Adriana had rarely heard Jazz talk about her father. He was an absence in her life that cast no shadow, Adriana had thought, partly thanks to Jazz’s mother, who was of the opinion that the less her daughter knew about the man who had brought shame to her family, the better. Adriana blinked. Jazz was always so cool, matter of fact, but it occurred to Adriana that maybe her aplomb was an act, protective gear only.

  Jazz wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. Adriana felt miles away from her pain, as though she were looking down the wrong end of a telescope. But she sat and waited for Jazz to stop sniffling. Jazz smiled at her, gratefully. “Thanks Addy, for staying. There was no one else I wanted to bring except you.”

  Adriana looked down at her hands, which lay lifeless in her lap. The darkness inside her head was impenetrably bleak, as though her skull were lined with lead. For the first time she realized that she was alone inside this darkness, that not even Jazz was able to enter. Only her mother, cold and relentless as a glacier, had found a foothold there.

  A short, chubby man wandered into the spotlight. He cleared his throat, waited until a hush settled over the room, and began to read. “There are not many men who have done what Bartholomew Banks, tonight’s illustrious guest speaker, has done. He has crossed through the shadows of the Valley of Death to reach out to those who linger at the edges of this Life, waiting for their time to pass into the Great Beyond.” Jazz clutched Adriana’s hand, riveted.

  “Bartholomew Banks not only speaks to the Dead, he helps them find their way to the Light. I will not take your time to list all of Bartholomew Banks’s accomplishments, but would simply like to introduce him as a man gifted beyond our understanding, and courageous and compassionate enough to use this gift for good.”

  Jazz clutched a handkerchief to her mouth. Adriana thought of her mother who, hands on hips, would no doubt poo-poo a man like Bartholomew Banks. Adriana doubted she was waiting in the shadows to speak with her—more likely, she was waiting off stage to castigate Adriana for being weak enough to attend an evening with an obvious charlatan.

  Bartholomew Banks entered the spotlight and thanked the chubby man, who graciously disappeared into the shadows. Dressed in a buckskin jacket he gripped the podium with both hands, squinting into the darkness for almost a minute, while the audience held its breath—rapt, bedazzled by his solemnity. His gaze seemed to settle on someone behind Adriana and Jazz at the back of the room. Adriana was glad that they’d decided to sit closer to the front, where they were safe from his penetrating stare.

  Banks cleared his throat, a sound that managed to express dignity and sobriety, and which, along with the eyebrows (shaggy beyond belief) made Adriana think of Abraham Lincoln. Banks nodded to Jazz, who sat stock still, clutching Adriana’s arm.

  “I see a man behind you,” he said, clearing his throat. It was a perfectly ordinary voice, neither deep nor sonorous, not what Adriana was expecting. “What is your name, young lady?”

  Jazz was speechless.

  “Yes, you,” Banks said, nodding in her direction.

  “Jasmine O’Connell” said Jazz. Adriana had never heard her call herself by her full name before.

  Banks gazed at her for a moment. “This man says that he is related to you.” Banks frowned slightly. “He died many years ago. Do you know him?” Jazz nodded and sobbed. Banks softened. “He says he is sorry for leaving you alone.” At this point Jazz’s tears were uncontrollable.

  “He says that he has been watching over you, even though you have grown up without him.” Jazz nodded silently. Adriana gaped. “He wants to give you his blessing, before he goes into the Light,” he continued. Jazz bowed her head and Banks waved his hand over her. “And he needs your blessing before he can depart.” Jazz looked up, eyes wide. “Yes,” Banks said, “He requires you to release him.” Jazz’s lips parted.

  “I release you,” she whispered.

  Bartholomew Banks waved his arms with a flourish. “Go to the Light,” he commanded. And soundlessly a door closed, a light withered and a wound in the air healed itself.

  Adriana held onto Jazz, who was shaking. “Are you okay?” she whispered. Jazz nodded. Her face was radiant, peaceful, joyful even. Adriana wasn’t sure why she felt anxious. Bartholomew Banks was smiling now.

  “And you,” he said pointing to Adriana. She sat motionless, as Jazz dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Bank’s eyebrows drew together. “You have a wraith following you.” Adriana looked blank. “It’s a woman.” Bartholomew Banks said, his brow furrowed. “She’s saying… she’s upset… it’s hard to make out the words.” He listened to the air once more. Adriana felt her heart beating in her ears. “She says that… you have everything… that there’s nothing you need.”

  Adriana felt like she’d been struck. Could this really be her mother? She tried to picture Viera saying those words. The mother she imagined looked exasperated, throwing her hands in the air and turning on her heel to storm out of Adriana’s bedroom. Adriana watched her go, in the gathering darkness. In her imagination, the
bottle of sleeping pills fell over as her mother slammed the door.

  The audience was stirring a little, restlessly awaiting their turn. Bartholomew Banks raised his arms in the air and brought his hands down slowly, like a conductor quieting an orchestra. He smiled for the first time, his blue eyes sparkling under the hood of his eyebrows. “The Dead only talk when you invite them to. Otherwise they are rather quiet.” Banks said, smiling apologetically.

  “Jazz,” Adriana whispered. Jazz, still beaming, looked at Adriana “Do you feel better?” Jazz nodded blissfully. Adriana looked down at her hands. She wished she could say the same.

  For the remainder of the evening, Bartholomew Banks was able to connect each person in the audience to the Dead, or to heal them of some minor or imagined misfortune. One woman felt her carpal tunnel syndrome had disappeared. There were tears and someone even fell to her knees. Banks seemed aloof, otherworldly, almost unaffected by the commotion he was causing in the lives of the living. It was as though he wasn’t quite here, but had one foot in the Light himself and was only marking time on this earth.

  After the final applause, Adriana and Jazz waited in the hotel lobby for Mr. Song to pick them up. Jazz was radiant, Adriana, sunk in gloom. She didn’t know why, but the fact that the mother who kept her company in her head was not the woman that Bartholomew Banks had summoned set up an almost intolerable anxiety in her.

  Mr. Song arrived at 9:25, and they went out to meet him. “How was it?” he asked, handing each of them a takeout cup of tea. Adriana glanced at Jazz, who rested her forehead against the car window, smiling dreamily at the winking street lights. “It was fine,” Adriana said, trying to sound bored. “Mom told me I have everything I need.” Her father’s eyes were shiny with worry. Adriana turned her head away.

  When they arrived at Jazz’s house, Adriana turned to Jazz. “Thanks,” she said. Jazz, glowing, hugged her shoulders.

  As she lay in bed that night, Adriana pondered why the spirit Bartholomew Banks conjured up had told her she had everything she needed. It wasn’t as if she had been asking for something. In fact, quite the opposite, unless longing for complete oblivion counted as asking.

  Adriana couldn’t escape the question any longer. Was the version of her mother that Bartholomew Banks had conjured the fiction, or was the mother she had known for so many years, the mother who accompanied her thoughts every day as judge and jury? She didn’t believe Bartholomew Banks, but she couldn’t afford not to. The thought of that mother opened up in her a longing, so keen and unfamiliar and irresistible that it was almost unbearable. She felt at the same time, like her life to that point had been an empty parking lot. Adriana pictured a tub of ice cream someone had come along and taken a big scoop out of, and then someone else had showed up and scooped some more. What was left was used up and hollow, something to be discarded. But it was all she had.

  The day after the spiritualist meeting, Adriana got up and swept the kitchen floor. She had no more energy for anything else. Sitting at the kitchen table, drained, she drank some tea that her father had made for breakfast. It was lukewarm and bitter, which was how Adriana felt. She returned to bed, in a room which was about the same as the day her mother died, except for the Cure poster on the opposite wall.

  Chapter 6

  “You can call me Dr. Bob,” said the psychologist as she seated herself opposite him in his office overlooking the campus.

  Her father, who’d come home at lunch with cartons of Chinese takeout the day after Bartholomew Banks, had given her an ultimatum. “You’ll see a therapist, or I’ll drive you to the doctor myself.” She barely cared, at this point. Adriana, who felt she’d reached the bottom of the well, was almost relieved to surrender.

  “Tell me a little about yourself… what brings you here today?” Dr. Bob asked. The psychologist looked at her kindly, pityingly, she thought, pen poised in his chubby hand to take notes. Adriana hadn’t been banking on that. She looked at him as though from far away, and tried to think.

  “My dad thinks I’m depressed,” she said. That was about all she could muster. Dr. Bob looked at her closely, taking note, she thought, of her unkempt hair and worn sweatshirt.

  “And are you?” was all he said.

  Adriana felt surprised. Of course she was. She nodded.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate how depressed you are?” Dr. Bob asked. “One is severely depressed and ten is ‘I feel great’.”

  Adriana attempted to think it over but got bogged down in the numbers. “Two?” she ventured.

  His brow furrowed. “It sounds like you are feeling quite depressed. How long have you been feeling this way?”

  Was it several months, or a year? Adriana could barely think. She squinted at him and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Have you had any thoughts of… harming yourself?” he asked.

  Adriana realized she had such thoughts, and that the bottle of sleeping pills was more than a thought—but there was also a recurring vision of her mother standing over her with fiery wings, and the stern face of Archangel Michael. That was her mother’s favourite Biblical figure—she swooned over Archangel Michael as though he were a movie star, even though she never went to church except at Easter and Christmas. Adriana wasn’t likely to harm herself with her archangel mother to answer to; but the Viera Bartholomew Banks had introduced her to seemed to drift like a veil of snow between them, and everything was less clear to her than it had been before.

  Dr. Bob was squinting at her. Adriana looked at his hands, his short, stubby fingers. He looked like a bear cub. She smiled slightly and Dr. Bob frowned back and repeated, “Have you… had any thoughts about dying?” Adriana shook her head but the dishonesty reddened her cheeks. She had wished for death, but was too afraid to attempt it. She was fearful of her mother’s wrath, if indeed there was another world after this one; and if there wasn’t, of the possibility of her mind winking out forever, like a candle on a birthday cake.

  Dr. Bob sat back in his chair. “Adriana,” he said. “I don’t know you very well since we have just met, but it seems to me you might need more help than I can give you.” Adriana looked up at Dr. Bob. The distance between them seemed enormous—a Great Lake or an ocean. Dr. Bob tried to get her to look him in the eye, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He spoke loudly to try to get her attention. “Adriana?” he said. “I think you should see Dr. Stoneaway…She’s a psychiatrist who has a private practice upstairs in this building. She’s very competent and works with a lot of young women with depression. Will you allow me to refer you to her?”

  A psychiatrist? Adriana shrank from the thought. She wasn’t crazy, was she? A psychiatrist would give her pills. She didn’t need pills the way she didn’t need a bucket full of garbage dumped on her head. Dr. Bob leaned forward. Adriana shook her head.

  Clearly Dr. Bob was accustomed to that reaction. He smiled and sat back in his chair. “Well,” he said, “What do you think you need to feel better?” Adriana looked at her knees. She didn’t know.

  “A hot bath?” she said weakly.

  Dr. Bob leaned toward her, intense and earnest. “Adriana, I think you and I both know that you’ve gone way beyond the hot bath stage. I think you need to see someone who can prescribe medications. They can be an amazing help to people who are severely depressed, which I think you are. You’ll still need therapy and Dr. Stoneaway is very skilled in that area. I can give her a call right now, if you like.”

  Adriana felt like running, but where would she run to? And wouldn’t it be proof of her alleged madness if she just took off out the door? Even in her state, she realized that it was advisable that she stay calm (or at least, that her face stay smooth and expressionless) and politely refuse. “No, thank you,” she heard herself say in a voice which seemed small and prim and slightly shaky.

  Dr. Bob tried one more time. “Adriana, your father is very worried about you. He says this down ph
ase of yours has gone on for much longer than usual and that he doesn’t know how to help you. I am also concerned that at this point, talk therapy isn’t going to get you very far. In my professional opinion you need to speak to someone about medication.”

  Inside herself, Adriana threw up her hands, weakly. She had refused pills out of a certain pride, but part of her just wanted to lie down and take whatever the doctor would give her. It was a kind of giving up. But at the last minute, to her own dreary dismay, she felt an unreasoning stubbornness take hold of her. “No,” she said, in a child’s voice. Dr. Bob frowned slightly, then sat back in his chair and stroked his chin. It looked to Adriana like he was pulling ice cream cones out of a dispenser, and she giggled, a sound high pitched and slightly unhinged.

  Dr. Bob let out a breath which could have been exasperated, but was definitely worried. “Alright Adriana, I can’t force you. I don’t think there’s much need for you to make another appointment with me. I hope you’ll decide on your own to see someone who can consider starting you on meds.”

  Adriana felt as though she were holding her breath and turning blue. Inside, she jangled, appalled at her own recklessness. She stood up shakily and nodded her head to Dr. Bob, who nodded back, smiling, but with brow furrowed. As she walked out into the street, she thought she felt his eyes on her, and it was all she could do not to turn around in surrender.

  Mr. Song was cooking supper when she got home. He turned as she came in the back door, and his sweet, expectant look made Adriana hate herself. “How did it go with Dr. Bob?” he asked, moving a spatula around the wok to stir-fry a handful of shrimp. Adriana watched them turn red, and wondered listlessly what genetic secret made a shrimp change to such a cheerful colour. What good was such a display when the shrimp was already dead?

  Mr. Song bent toward her and looked into her face. “Adriana, are you okay?” he asked. She knew he wanted the real answer.

  “No,” was all she said. She felt as though she were wandering in a treeless slough.